Scouring compositions such as particulate compositions or liquid (incl. gel, paste-type) compositions containing abrasive components are well known in the art. Such compositions are used for cleaning and/or cleansing a variety of surfaces; especially those surfaces that tend to become soiled with difficult to remove stains and soils.
Amongst the currently known scouring compositions, the most popular ones are based on abrasive particles either from natural, or organic origin although with shapes varying from spherical to irregular and come in the form of liquid composition having a creamy consistency with the abrasive particles suspended therein.
A need however exists in improving the weight efficiency of known scouring compositions to further improve the cleaning of a surface, whilst providing good surface safety, and further enabling easier suspension of the particles in the liquid matrix.
It is thus an objective of the present invention to provide a liquid cleaning and/or cleansing composition suitable to clean/cleanse a variety of surfaces, including inanimate and animate surfaces, such hard surfaces in and around the house, dish surfaces, hard and soft tissue surface of the oral cavity, such as teeth, gums, tongue and buccal surfaces, human and animal skin, etc., wherein the composition provides good cleaning/cleansing performance, whilst providing a good surface safety profile and particle suspension.
It has been found that the above objective can be met by the composition according to the present invention.
It is an advantage of the compositions according to the present invention that they may be used to clean/cleanse inanimate and animate surfaces made of a variety of materials like glazed and non-glazed ceramic tiles, enamel, stainless steel, Inox®, Formica®, vinyl, no-wax vinyl, linoleum, melamine, glass, plastics, painted surfaces, human and animal skin, hair, hard and soft tissue surface of the oral cavity, such as teeth enamel, gums, tongue and buccal surfaces, and the like.
A further advantage of the present invention is that in the compositions herein, the particles can be formulated at very low levels, whilst still providing the above benefits. Indeed, in general for other technologies, generally high levels by weight of abrasive particles are needed to reach good cleaning/cleansing performance, thus leading to high formulation and process cost, difficult rinse and end cleaning profiles, as well as limitation for aesthetics and a pleasant hand feel of the cleaning/cleansing composition.